Industrial cellular devices are often utilized to bring connectivity to devices placed in remote or difficult to reach locations. In addition to providing connectivity to rural or less developed regions with limited transportation infrastructure, industrial cellular devices may also be used to provide wireless connectivity to sensors or other electronics placed in inhospitable locations such as within storage tanks, on towers, stacks or structures of industrial plants, near dangerous operating equipment or otherwise within dangerous operating environments. Cellular connections provide data connectivity to these areas while avoiding the need to run data cables or, in some cases, the need to penetrate containment barriers such as a vessel wall.
Typically, these industrially cellular devices are installed and activated by technicians who travel to the installation location, sometimes at considerable expense. For example, in industrial situations, plant equipment and processes may need to be shut down or the area otherwise made safe for the technician to enter in order to install the cellular device. One issue with cellular communications, however, is that the quality of cellular service at a particular installation site is often unknown until the technician arrives and can determine signal qualities. A process that involves having the technician performing a site signal survey, and then interpreting the results to determine which cellular service carriers have usable signals for that location, is a time consuming process that creates costs for both the technician's employer and the site operator whose equipment may be out of service during the installation process. If the technician did not bring with them a device compatible with the cellular service available as determined by the survey, a second trip to bring a compatible device will be needed. Alternatively, the technician could bring multiple devices with them to the installation site to allow for contingencies. However, this strategy necessarily requires always maintaining and transporting an inventory of extra devices that are readily available to the technician at the installation site. In addition, in some environments where foreign material exclusion or contamination are of concern, carrying extra equipment to an installation site may be greatly discouraged.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for self-configuring wireless device initializations.